Ordering Caps for Black Friday
By The Velocity Wear Team
Black Friday sells whatever is already on your shelf, so the target is stock in hand by mid-November rather than delivery during the week itself. Counting back through 10 to 15 working days of production, artwork approval and transit, that puts the order in October. A cap that arrives on the Wednesday of promo week has missed most of the demand.
When do Black Friday caps have to be ordered?
Pick the date your stock has to be counted, photographed and listed, then work back. Production is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval. Ahead of that, allow real time for sign-off, because promo artwork usually involves marketing as well as whoever owns the brand. Behind it, allow for transit into the UK, the USA or Europe and for your own receiving.
The practical effect is an October order. That feels early against a late-November promo, and every year somebody decides it is early enough to wait. The caps then arrive during the week they were meant to sell in. Specification and quantity go in on the wholesale caps page, and the build clock starts at approval.
How many should you have in hand?
The minimum is 50 pieces per design and sizes mix freely inside that, which on headwear is barely a constraint because adjustable closures cover most heads. The harder question is depth. A promo week concentrates demand into a few days, so running out on the Friday afternoon costs more than carrying a few extra into December.
Pricing pushes the same way. The tiers run 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000-plus, with up to 35% off the 50-piece price at the top. Stepping from the bottom of one band to the start of the next often costs very little extra in total while lowering the unit price, which improves the margin on every cap you do sell.
One cap deep, or three designs?
Three designs means three lots of fifty, three artwork approvals and three sets of setup. One design run deep means a better unit price, a simpler stock count and no leftovers split across colourways nobody wanted. For a first promo, one strong cap run deep is almost always the better call.
Where multiple designs earn their place is when they serve genuinely different buyers: a structured six panel for the core audience and a soft dad cap for a different one. If you are undecided between holding stock and taking orders first, the trade-off is worked through in pre-order or buy stock first.
What does a promo cap cost you per unit?
Caps start from $12 a piece at the 50-piece minimum, before decoration complexity and before freight. Discounting during the promo comes out of your margin, not the manufacturing cost, so build the promo price from the landed unit cost rather than from the list price. A cap discounted to below its landed cost is a loss dressed as a campaign.
If you want one sample before committing the run, that is £150 and is credited against the bulk order. Request it through the samples page in early October so the approval and the production window still fit behind it.
What should be ready before the caps arrive?
Listings, photography and a plan for counting the delivery in. Caps arrive bagged and cartoned, and how they are packed affects how quickly you can get them onto a shelf or into an order queue; that is covered in how bulk caps are packed. Opening the first carton on the morning of the promo is how a good stock position turns into a bad week.
